A Spoonful of Goodness...

Kentucky’s bread tradition is based primarily on cornmeal. We make hoe cakes, cornmeal batter cakes, cracklin’ corn bread, hushpuppies, spoonbread and corn sticks.

Corn bread has been a staple on the Southern table since the early 17th century, said John Egerton, author of Side Orders, Small Helpings of Southern Cookery and Culture.

Corn bread doesn’t require a recipe: Grab a cupful or two of white cornmeal, put it in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, soda, baking powder and some buttermilk. Stir it up and spoon it into a hot, greased iron skillet.

People from the North can make tasty corn bread, but they usually use yellow cornmeal and lots of sugar, and it comes out tasting like a corn muffin. “If God had meant for cornbread to have sugar in it, he’d have called it cake," said Ronni Lundy, author of Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken.

Mark Twain wrote: “Perhaps no bread in the world is as good as Southern cornbread, and perhaps no bread in the world is as bad as the Northern imitation of it.”

Kentuckians like their corn bread with soup beans, country fried steak, fried chicken, and roast pork.

The earliest form of corn bread is the hoecake. Pioneer historian Harriette Arnow said slaves in Virginia mixed cornmeal with water and baked it on their hoes over the open fire. Bake ovens were few in the early days and breads were cooked in skillets. Breads designed to be baked in heavy casseroles and Dutch ovens directly over the coals of a hearth fire were spoon bread and corn sticks.

Spoonbread, which is a cross between a pudding and a wet corn bread, is one of the classic Southern breads made with cornmeal. It’s one of the most popular dishes on the menu at the historic Boone Tavern in Berea. Weisenberger Mill in Midway makes a spoonbread mix that’s a favorite with busy cooks.

This early recipe is from The Blue Grass Cook Book by Minnie C. Fox, which has been reprinted the University Press of Kentucky with a new introduction by Toni Tipton-Martin.

Spoon corn bread

8 eggs
Nearly a quart of buttermilk
1 teacup of sweet milk
A light teaspoonful of soda
Lard, the size of a walnut
4 or 5 large spoonfuls of corn meal (after it is sifted)
Bake in an earthen dish an hour. Serve with a spoon.

This more recent recipe for spoonbread is from Look No Further by Richard T. Hougen, who was chef at Boone Tavern in Berea for many years.

Southern spoonbread

1 1⁄4 cup white cornmeal
3 cups milk
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 3⁄4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons butter
Stir meal into rapidly boiling milk. Cook until very thick, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Remove from fire and allow to cool. The mixture will be cold and very stiff. Add well-beaten eggs, salt, baking powder and melted butter. Beat with an electric beater for 15 minutes.

If hand beating, break the hardened cooked meal into beaten eggs in small amount until all is mixed. Then beat for 10 minutes using a wooden spoon. Pour into a well-greased casserole. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. Serve from casserole by spoonfuls.